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THE WORLD-REAPERS OF THE 
GRAND ARMY HARVEST 


frara of Seminiacrnre 






memorial Sag Agrees 


GEN. HENRY B. CARRINGTON 


Before E. W. Pierce Post, No. 8. Dept, of Mass, 
at Middleboro, Mass., May 30, J905 









* 


Gift 

Author 

(Person) 

ji jo'oe 


’ THE NEW CENTER OF GRAVITY. 


Comrades and all you participants in the 
mercies vouchsafed to the American people 
and the world through the divine guidance 
of our Almighty Heavenly Father, I 
can greet you in no more appropriate 
words than those of President Lincoln, 
when from an open window of the White 
House, at Washington, he announced the 
event which we honor today. They were 
these: 

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! 

Praise Him, all creatures here belw! 

Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Hosts! 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!” 

That great man’s heart swelled with emo¬ 
tion almost to bursting as he announced a 
redeemed republic—not from joy over de¬ 
feated armies, but over fraternity restored 
and the dawn of assured, perpetual peace. 

Then, as today, wives, mothers, daugh¬ 
ters, sisters and sweethearts shared in the 
jubilant refrain, and as he watched their 
uplifted faces, radiant with happiness, 
though tearful from emotion, he added 
these simple words, which will echo from 
every comrade’s heart: 

“I am not accustomed to eulogize 
women! I have never studied the art of 
paying complements to women; but I now 
do say, that if all that has been said by ora¬ 
tors and poets from the creation of the 
world was applied to the women of Amer¬ 
ica, it would not do justice for their con¬ 
duct during the war! God bless the women 
of America I'* 

This devout call for praise is in harmony 
with the theme which, in my judgment, 
transcends all local and personal interests, 
and that is the sublime fact that the har¬ 
vest from the seed-sowing and blood-nour¬ 
ishing of the Grand Army of the Republic 


is to find eager reapers from among all 
mankind; that not alone all creatures here 
below, but the mighty host whose earthly 
ministrations to the cause of American lib¬ 
erty closed upon the battlefield, or in hospi¬ 
tal, are participators of your joy. The 
ascending odors of sweet flowers that shall 
fill all space between earth and sky today, 
shall not be sweeter that the music of their 
praises to the God of battles, that they 
were permitted to be partakers in the salva¬ 
tion of the Union while they labored here 
below. 

No man liveth to himself and no man 
dieth to himself alone! The seed that 
dieth, that it may reproduce its kind, 
and the subtle pollen that is wafted by 
vagrant winds to some distant ocean isle 
that has been prepared for vegetation by 
the wear of storm or volcanic force, is but a 
faint emblem of the spread of the political, 
social and religious enlightenment that 
shall hereafter fall like healing balm upon 
the famishing millions who moan and pray 
for deliverance from the slavery of their 
benighted condition. 

This day marks the fortieth anniversary 
of the close of that conflict which put an 
end to human slavery in the United States 
and vindicated the claim of the founders of 
the republic to the perpetual gratitude of 
generations that shall aspire for genuine 
civil and religious liberty. 

While therefore grateful for present 
mercies, never so bounteously conferred 
upon any other people, it is no less a privi¬ 
lege than a duty, calmly and charitably to 
review the past, and then as devoutly antici¬ 
pate the future for our beloved country and 
through her example for the world at 
large. 

When our fathers, who for generations 


3 




had fed upon the manna that followed the 
descent of Magna Charta, landed upon the 
shores of your own Plymouth County, they 
lovingly called their new possession, New 
England. English law, language and reli¬ 
gion were transplanted in America as the 
choicest germs by which to nourish and en¬ 
rich their fresh home life and then perpetu¬ 
ate the franchises of their sacred inherit¬ 
ance aud thus escape from the domination 
of aristocratic power and dogmatic con¬ 
straint upon conscience and duty. And 
then, on that beautiful southern coast 
which bore the name Virginia, in loyal trib¬ 
ute to the virgin queen Elizabeth, whose 
brilliant administrrtion of English Common 
Law so mightily developed the growth and 
grandeur of the mother country, there was 
instituted another colonial system, destined 
to share with New England in the accept¬ 
ance and promulgation of those principles 
of personal and municipal liberty that made 
the two, thus associated, so controlling in 
the achievement of our national indepen¬ 
dence. 

Even then, as during more than one con¬ 
vulsive struggle in the old home-land, there 
were clashing convictions as to the legiti¬ 
mate scope of both personal and govern¬ 
mental constraint, and these deepened their 
active antagonisms during bolder asser¬ 
tions of sectional and race distinctions un¬ 
til the American conscience became dulled 
as to the normal and righteous behests of 
true civil liberty. As a result of temporiz¬ 
ing on the part of the national executive, 
the mightiest war of professedly Christian 
civilization had as its vital factor the very 
existence of the constitution which had 
both Massachusetts and Virginia as its 
leading representatives when they sought 
to establish a permanent basis for a free 
republic. 

Blood without measure aud treasure 
without stint were expended, in order that 
a genuine deliverance from the burden of 
African slavery might be Anally assured. 
The civilized world watched with mingled 
emotions of hope and dread, lest the ordeal 
should prove fatal to the interests of hu¬ 
manity at large, so plainly at stake in the 
momentous struggle. 

Today, the United States verifies in its 
wealth, resources and potential influence 
throughout the civilized world, all that the 
founders of the republic hoped for and all 
that Washington himself predicted of its 
manifest destiny. One hundred and twen¬ 
ty-two years ago last February, in bidding 


farewell to the Revolutionary army, he 
spoke words that seem to have been ex¬ 
pressly designed for you, comrades of the 
Grand Army of the Republic. They were 
as follows: 

“Happy, thrice happy shall they be pro¬ 
nounced hereafter who have contributed 
anything, who have performed the meanest 
office, in erecting this stupendous fabric of 
freedom aud empire upon the broad basis 
of independency ; who have assisted in pro¬ 
tecting the rights of human nature and 
establishing an asylum for the poor and op¬ 
pressed of all naiions and religions.” 

Who but yourselves, comrades of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, are the sub¬ 
jects of that sublime call to be “Happy! 
thrice happy!” in which now the entire 
nation shares your complacent happiness! 

When first invited to be your guest 
and address you on this memorial oc¬ 
casion, I hesitated for more reasons than 
one; but, upon second thought, and remem¬ 
bering that threescore years and ten of 
my life had been consciously shaped by 
considerations that prompted service in 
arms for the preservation of the Union that 
had been slowly undermined by the dicta¬ 
tions of the slave oligarchy, I felt that duty 
commanded assent to your request. It may 
be my last opportunity to participate in a 
similar observance of this Memorial day. 
Already I have noticed with both concern 
and paiu that sacrifices made by veterans 
of the civil war are somewhat overshadow¬ 
ed by the excitements of more recent mili¬ 
tary service, and that therisiug generation, 
which has no recollection of the stirring 
events of your times, can hardly realize 
that living men who move about with the 
little bronze button on their breast, were 
the very men who saved the republic in its 
hours of greatest peril. It is often true, in 
this day of rapid change, that actors in 
current events are not valued for faithful 
service until their life has reached its close, 
and it is of vital interest to your children 
and your children’s children that this Me¬ 
morial day, so legally established, shall be 
a perpetual reminder of perils undergone 
and the Union rescued from threatened dis¬ 
solution. 

The late Gen. Francis Walker, president 
of the Massachusetts School of Technol¬ 
ogy, thus quaintly and philosophically 
alluded to a case where one who had been 
neglected in his lifetime was the subject of 
extensive posthumous praise. “It was a 
case,” he said, “where a little taffy in his 


4 



lifetime would have done more good than 
all the epitaphy that followed his depart¬ 
ure.” 

The modest soldier behind the sun, the 
weather-beaten picket on the skirmish lkie, 
and even the oil-tender in tne engine room 
of the battleship may be the hero of a vic¬ 
tory only attainable through his calmness, 
courage and patriotic service. 

No statesmanship in war, no political 
sagacity, no scientific leadership, can suc¬ 
ceed without these potent auxiliaries, and 
on occasions such as this it is most fit that 
sorrow over the fallen should be hallowed 
by tears as well as floral tributes, and that 
joy over victories won, in the name of 
great generals, should be tempered by a 
warmer appreciation of the surviving vet¬ 
erans who carried the gun and assured to 
our beautiful “Stars and Stripes” its world¬ 
wide recognition as “Old Glory.” But 
something more ib to be said as to my ac¬ 
ceptance of your invitation to address you, 
as well as to be your guest. 

Few of my personal comrades survive, 
and almost uncousciously to myself I begin 
to feel a somewhat lonely sentiment unless 
I have contact with such reminiscent occa¬ 
sions as these. My commission as Colonel 
of the 18th U. S. Infantry, along with those 
of Sherman, Canby, Heintzelman, Andrew 
Porter, Fitz John Porter, Franklin and oth¬ 
ers, was dated May 14, 44 years ago. All 
these, as well as every general officer borne 
upon the army register for 1861 have 
passed away. All have been noticed on 
succeeding annual registers as among the 
“casualties” of successive years. Most 
suggestive to myself of all the “casualty 
army lists” is that of the register of 186i, 
when we who were then commissioned 
filled places vacated by such men as Joseph 
E. Johnson. Samuel Cooper, Albert Sydney 
Johnson, Robert E. Lee, Wm. J. Hardee, 
Earl Van Dorn, John B. Magruder, With¬ 
ers, Sibley and scores of others who 
risked their honored names and well- 
earned laurels in the lottery of seces¬ 
sion. 

And even of a group of young students 
who enlisted at my own request in 1861, 
with view to their appointment to commis¬ 
sions as 2d lieutenants, then within the pre 
rogative of the colonels of the new three 
battalion regiments of the regular army, 
several of whom reached the rank of Brig¬ 
adier General, few survive. One of these, 
Gilbert S. Carpenter, late deceased, who 
left Western Reserve college and declined 


a volunteer commission to join the 18th, 
eventually became my successor as the Col¬ 
onel of that regiment. The sons of some 
of them are now officers of the American 
army. Most of them, however, have 
crossed the silent river; but the entire 
world has been blest through their labors, 
as will appear later, and in the plenitude 
of blessiugs enjoyed by ourselves through 
those labors, w T e who survive must prove 
worthy to have been comrades of the de¬ 
parted ones.* 

It is not my purpose to dwell upon cam¬ 
paigns in detail nor to discuss at large the 
protracted moral, social and political strug¬ 
gle which finally, through blood, emanci¬ 
pated the slave. Biographies and volumin¬ 
ous volumes exhaust the treatment of each. 
I shall speak in a reminiscent vein with the 
freedom of a comrade, and, first, of ante¬ 
bellum incidents of the maturing conflict 
that entered into my earliest life experi¬ 
ence. 

Secondly, of domestic disloyalty north of 
the Ohio river, that protracted the war at a 
vast increase of blood and treasure, with 
which, more than any other comrade of 
the Grand Army, I was personally familiar, 
and, thirdly, in illustration of my pro¬ 
nounced theme, that of the debt which the 
entire earth owes the Grand Army for the 
privilege of reaping in that great harvest 
of world-wide blessing that has matured 
through your sacrifices and labors. 

ANTE-BELLUM REMINISCENCES. 

There will be this novelty at least in 
what I say, that passages and incidents are 
taken from a boy’s diary commenced more 
than threescore and ten years ago. 

The precipitance with which the civil 
war was forced upon the country largely 
beclouded the fact that the North itself had 
patiently foreborne to make the slave-hold¬ 
ing feature of the Southern political policy 
“a matter of life or death to the Union of 
the Fathers,” and they could not believe 
that such an issue would be forced to the 
arbitrament of arms. Business relations 
had become so established and the Mexican 
war had so enlarged the slave-holding terri¬ 
tory of the South that the question had 


* The first recruit for the 18th Infantry, and one 
of my first promotions, Henry B. Freeman, is 
stili on the Retired list as Brigadier-General; 
another, John F. Hitchcock, son of Rev. Henry L. 
Hitchcock, President of Western Reserve College, 
gave his life lor the Union in the battle of Stone 
River. 


5 




gradually changed to that of the simple 
limitation of its sphere of exercise to terri¬ 
tories already subject to its conditions. 

All the succeeding developments, includ¬ 
ing their relations to the “Mason and 
Dixon line” of proposed demarcation, the 
“Missouri Compromise” and the famous 
“Wilmot Proviso,” up to the Kansas and 
Nebraska “embroglio” accentuated the ten¬ 
dency to passionate outbursts; and the 
wild mal-adventure of John Brown both 
alarmed and angered the South while par¬ 
tially paralyzing the conservative but 
aroused conscience of the North! 

Up to the time of the weak pretence of 
supporting Major Anderson at Fort Sum¬ 
ter and the cowardly abandonment of him¬ 
self and his comrades in arms, and even af¬ 
ter long warring in the field, the term 
“Abolitionist” was one of reproach and al¬ 
most of contempt. Even at the North itself 
“gradual emancipation,” as planned by 
Washington, Jefferson and their successors, 
including Henry Clay of Kentucky, Bell of 
Tennessee, Benton of Missouri and others 
of equal reputation from Georgia and 
North Carolina, and not abolition by sud¬ 
den enactment of law or by force, was the 
wholesome remedy most wisely prescribed 
for this national canker. Early in the 
40’s the annual conundrum for s lution in 
the disputes of Yale students was the sol¬ 
emn inquiry, “Ought the United States 
Government to abolish slavery in the Dis¬ 
trict of Columbia?” My own retained 
manuscript upon that topic is still in exist¬ 
ence, reminding me chiefly of the flight of 
time and the enlargement of the domain of 
American liberty since its date, more than 
60 years ago. 

I remember well the last slave owned by 
John Barker, a relative, in my native town 
in Connecticut, named Cato, whose fiddle 
led the music at all Thanksgiving night 
balls in the country tavern, known as the 
“Washington House,” because Washington 
was its guest when he passed through that 
village in 1788. His kind farewell to his 
hostess is matter of record, and the key of 
his room, preserved when the house was 
burned, has been silver-plated and pre¬ 
served as a memento of his visit. 

The donkey cart of old Cato, as he came 
into town to perform his musical functions, 
is in my brain collection of pictures of the 
past. I had heard of “abolitionists” and 
used to read with curiosity an almanac, 
dated in 1834, bearing upon the page oppo¬ 
site the signs of the Zodiac, a frightful 


picture of a kneeling African who, before a 
prisou pen at the natioual capital, was lift¬ 
ing his manacled hands and reported as ut¬ 
tering the plaintive wail, “Am I not also a 
mau and a brother?” 

Just 70 years ago I became a pupil in a 
boarding school at Torringford, Ct., high 
up in the hills, where snow drifts lasted 
until the late spring, and the managers, 
Rev. Epaphras Goodman and Dr. Erastus 
Hudson were real, living abolitionists. 

One day there came from his home &t 
New Hartford another of the same type, 
named John Brown, who detailed to the 
pupils the horrors of the African slave 
trade and; drew a vivid picture of a slave 
ship and its shallow decks stocked with the 
victims of man-robbery. He insisted that 
all the boys pledge themselves to work for 
universal liberty if they should ever reach 
the ripe age of 21 years. I have never for¬ 
gotten, never, the impression upon my life 
by that heated and almost frenzied appeal. 
When he paid the penalty of his Harper’s 
Ferry invasion, I could not but understand 
that his life-long burden would be lifted 
upon reaching the upper skies, and “John 
Brown’s spirit go marching on !” 

A few years later, while at a boarding 
school in Farmington, Ct., and the slaves 
rescued from the slave ship Amistead were 
encamped upon the Farmington meadows 
until the government could decide whether 
they were to be freed or returned to their 
alleged owners, the venerable Noah Porter, 
father of the late President Porter of Yale 
college, summoned his parishioners to meet 
in prayer that these slaves be never return¬ 
ed to bondage. Such was the bitter hate 
of the proscribed abolitionists and the fear 
that if they did not “rend the heavens” 
they certainly would destroy tne republic, 
that a mob broke the windows of the place 
of prayer and dispersed the assembled wor¬ 
shippers. The school boys, who were ex¬ 
pected to attend all regular prayer meetings 
as well as Sunday-school exercises, with 
devout manner and with due appreciation 
of the ministrations of their beloved pastor, 
never understood the profane accusation 
against him that “he had turned into a hor¬ 
rid abolitionist!” 

Just after that the old Torringford 
teachers who visited West Hartford, to in¬ 
culcate their radical and dangerous opinions 
upon African slavery, were driven from 
town in scanty apparel, which barely cov¬ 
ered the tar and feathers that formed their 
sticky underwear. One other survivor of 


6 



the Farmington schoolmates, Noah Brew¬ 
ster, of Bristol, Ct., still survives, at the 
advanced age (as he calls it) of 81, and the 
late Rev. Dr. W. W. Patton, president of 
Howard University, Washington, D. C., 
was one of the last survivors of the old 
Torringford group, the preserved catalogue 
of the school at that date being the full 
record of their names and residence. 

Brewster was also for a while ray room¬ 
mate at Yale, in 1841, and joined in success¬ 
fully resisting the invasion of our private 
apartment by certain classmates w r ho sus¬ 
pected us of being ‘‘as bad as abolitionists” 
in our views of slavery at the national cap¬ 
ital, upon perusal of the announcement of 
a large sale of young girls, scantily clad, in 
broad daylight, under the blaze of a hot 
sun, at auction, to the highest bidder. 

At Columbus, Ohio, beginning the prac¬ 
tice of law in 1849, the attempt of a mob, 
on a false alarm of fire, to drown out Fred 
Douglass, who was to speak in the Old State 
House,* aroused a willing interest in his suc¬ 
cessful rescue from his critics, and brought 
to light a series of papers known as the 
Oxygen papers, signed “N Oxygen, Esq.,” 
entitled “Am I at last an abolitionist?” 

John VanBuren and James G. Birney next 
appeared as advocate of two new parties, 
the “Free Soil” and the “Liberty Party,” 
and by the casting vote of Dr. N. S. Town¬ 
send, Salmon P. Chase was elected to the 
United States senate. In 1854, on the 13th 
day of July, the anniversary of the Ordi¬ 
nance of 1787, establishing the North West 
Territory as free soil, a state convention 
was called to concentrate sentiment against 
the Lecompton constitution, favored by 
President Buchanan, for the territories of 
Kansas and Nebraska 

As a life-long Harry Clay Whig, it be¬ 
came my privilege to act with that body 
and to serve for a time as chairman of the 
special State committee appointed to organ¬ 
ize that new party afterwards known as 
Republican. Ohio, as the first-born Terri¬ 
tory and State of the northwest, had no al¬ 
ternate choice! 

Even then, the new party had nothing in 
common with the views of the extremists 
of either section, and forcible abolition 
was as foreign to the purpose of its peopie 


* It was my pleasure, after the Civil War began, 
from the east front of the New State House, to 

f >resent to John M. Langston (colored), who had 
n charge forty-nine recruits for the 54th Massa¬ 
chusetts Infantry, a silk American flag, as they 
started for Boston, Mass. 


as would have been the rescue of Africa 
itself from the invasion of man-stealers. 
A single word as to Ohio, before dismissing 
the subject of ante-bellum reminiscence. 

The Western Reserve, known as New 
Connecticut, was settled under the super¬ 
vision, largely, of the Connecticut Land 
Company, of which Capt. Caleb Atwater, 
of Wallingford, was president. Several 
of his sons and married daughters were 
among the first settlers there. Marietta, 
on the southern border, was largely settled 
by emigrants from Salem and other Massa¬ 
chusetts towns, moving out under the guid¬ 
ance of General Rufus Putnam, and 
others. The Stones of Massachusetts; 
Andrews, Kelleys and Wilcoxes of Connec¬ 
ticut; Kilbourns, Gills, Westwaters and 
others from New York and Pennsylvania, 
as well as the Neils, Deshlers, S waynes and 
Gwynnes, largely settled Columbus, though 
the Sullivants and Starlings of Kentucky 
gave it its first survey and its municipal 
organization, while Virginia contributed a 
large number, the land itself having been 
known as the Virginia Military Land Dis¬ 
trict. f 

The emigration was of the best families 
and all elements were conservative as well 
as patriotic. They intermarried and were 
model pioneers in the introduction of 
schools, churches and every concomitant 
of an advanced and Christian civilization. 
All were proud of the new State and during 
the times of greatest friction between Ohio 
and Kentucky as to harboring fugitive 
slaves who escaped from Kentucky for 
refuge in Canada, there was no extensive 
sympathy with radical measures to alienate 
the southern Border States from one com¬ 
mon love for the Union of the Fathers. 
An early domestic alliance gave opportun¬ 
ity to know intimately the central portions 
of Kentucky and its people and to know 
that the institution of slavery in its mild¬ 
est form was not desired as a permanent 
factor in national development, and that 
gradual emancipation, so far as consistent 
with society as organized, would be for 
the common welfare of both races. 

During the years 1857-9 there had been 
repeated controversies as to the jurisdic¬ 
tion, respectively, of the State and Federal 
courts in the arrest and extradition of fugi- 


f All the heads of these old families, and others, 
living at Columbus at the time of my arrival, in 
October, 1848, as well as all other attorneys of that 
date, when the population was but 12,350, have 
passed away. 


7 





tive slaves, and a basis of compromise was 
not adopted until Gov. Chase and President 
Buchanan agreed that the process of the 
court gaining first cognizance of a case 
should have priority of trial. It did, how¬ 
ever, result in the organization of the State 
militia upon a substantial basis, until at the 
outbreak of the war Ohio had 15 battalions 
and six batteries organized and under in¬ 
struction and drill. 

As late as January, 1860, the legislatures 
of both Kentucky and Tennessee were the 
w T elcome and honored guests of Ohio at the 
state capital, and on that occasion Lieut.- 
Gov. Newman of Tennessee challenged 
Ohio to compete with Tennessee in loyalty 
to the Union and the constitution as it 
stood at that date. 

Bear in mind, comrades, that opposite 
Kentucky were the three border states of 
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, controlling all 
the Mississippi river commerce and that 
behind the semi-neutral states of Kentucky 
and Tennessee were the powerful confed¬ 
erate states of Georgia, Alabama and Mis¬ 
sissippi ; that an interior railroad connected 
the last three States with Richmond, the 
Confederate capital, while the only railroad 
line from Washington to southern Ohio ran 
wholly through southern territory, viz : the 
Baltimore and Ohio railway. From Wheel¬ 
ing to Cairo, the outlet of the Ohio, the 
free states were wholly exposed to inva¬ 
sion, and with Missouri still a slave state, 
the issue in that section of country was 
vital to the safety of the entire west. 

West Virginia was organizing to join 
the Union party and eastern Tennessee ac¬ 
tually made appeal to its legislature, as 
soon as hostilities opened, for separation 
as a distinct State. 

With the firing upon Sumter, Virginia 
immediately moved in force to occupy the 
Baltimore and Ohio railroad and control 
the upper waters of the Ohio. Within 60 
hours of the receipt of the President’s call 
upon Ohio for troops, two regiments were 
moving east to compete with Massachusetts 
in defense of the Capital. A battery, the 
first, west of the Alleghanies, to fire a shot, 
and nine regiments of Ohio militia entered 
West Virginia before any Ohio volunteers 
could be mustered into the service, and 
their part in the Battle of Phillippi was 
largely successful in saving West Virginia, 
permanently, to the Union. 

Tennessee sent Zollicoffer into its eastern 
section to seize Knoxville, and passed an 
Act to apportion its Confederate quota 


among the free negroes as well as the 
whites, and forcibly to conscript them if 
they failed to fill their quota promptly. 
This was the first effort, either North or 
South, to enlist or draft negroes in the 
Civil War struggle. 

The campaign of Zollicoffer was a failure 
and he was killed in the Battle of Mill 
Springs, where Thomas, the Rock of Chick- 
amauga, gained his first battle. Meanwhile, 
the government could neither send troops 
nor money to assist the west. In June, the 
Battle of Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), was 
fought, but with 135,000 men at his disposal, 
Halleck allowed Bragg to retreat and 
fortify Corinth and then to retire from it 
unpursued. Gen. Sherman stated that 
Halleck could have gone unmolested to 
Mobile, besides defeating all opposition, if 
he had actively advanced with the force 
under his absolute control. 

The famous invasion of Kentucky by 
Braiig and Kirby Smith followed. He ap¬ 
pointed a military governor for Kentucky, 
pronounced the State as wholly identified 
with the Confederacy, intimidated or dis¬ 
couraged thousands of Union men, and 
made both Cincinnati and Louisville as his 
objectives of capture. In four days 
Indiana rushed 12 regiments into Kentucky 
besides sending heavy guns under charge of 
Gen. Lew Wallace to fortify and defend the 
heights opposite that city on the Kentucky 
shore. 

The Battle of Richmond was fought, the 
advance upon Cincinnatti was checked. 
Bragg paused in his march toward Louis¬ 
ville, long enough to capture Muufordsville, 
only to find that when ready to advance, 
Indiana troops had reinforced the garrison 
at that city which was uuder the command 
of Nelson, and the immediate arrival of 
Buel from the south, compelled him to sus¬ 
pend his inarch. The Battle of Perryville 
followed and he abandoned his campaign. 
But the emergency along the border was 
extreme. Union men hardly dare avow 
their sentiments. The shock along the 
entire border on both sides of the river, 
especially in cities aud towns, could never 
be understood by a stranger to that section. 

DOMESTIC DISLOYALTY DURING THE WAR 

Another call for troops, accompanied by 
a draft, added to the alarm. It was a grave 
question whether the ground occupied by 
Union troops could be held until the new 
levies could be placed in the field. The 
war was publicly declared to be a failure by 


8 



leading politician, depressing enlistments, 
encouraging desertions, and paralizing bus¬ 
iness as well as military conduct. The con¬ 
dition was never understood at the east. 
The east did not have that local nearness to 
active war which made every night and day 
the possible opportunity for immediate 
service. Enlisted men were insulted and 
denounced as “Lincoln Hirelings” no less 
vehemently then were the drafted men and 
substitutes. 

In five weeks alone, over 3,000 broke 
loose from camps, and were protected in 
their hiding places by organized allies of 
the southern Confedracy. Regiments taken 
prisoners at Richmond returned on ex¬ 
change, but on parol, and not amenable to 
service. Several thousand prisoners of war 
were to be guarded, while daily attempts 
were made to aid them in escape. The legisla¬ 
ture of Indiana took strong ground against 
the further prosecution of the war, and the 
chief justice of the Supreme Court an¬ 
nounced on the 31st of December, 1862, that 
if the Military Dictator at Washington 
should promulge his proclamation of eman¬ 
cipation as promised, he should hold that 
Indiana was entitled to resume its inde¬ 
pendence and act for herself. Writs for 
the arrest of Federal officers who were en¬ 
gaged in their duty multiplied until troops 
about the State House in support of its 
State executive and the practical suspension 
of the court itself from its assumed con¬ 
tempt of federal authority, alone brought a 
rest from formal attempts to break up the 
organized recruiting service in the State. 
The arrest of deserters was forcibly resist¬ 
ed in many counties, and more than 150 
were convicted by Federal juries of disloyal 
practices in opposition to the national 
government. Draft rendezvous records 
were seized and destroyed, until the United 
States marshal repeatedly called for troops 
to protect officers and enforce the law. 

In the adjoining State of Illinois, officers 
were arrested and arraigned upon charges 
of kidnapping, while the admitted deserters 
in their custody were set free. It took a 
batallion of troops to surround the Court 
House, arrest the judge and release the 
officers from the county sheriff’s custody. 
The Order of the Knights of the Golden 
Circle, after its change to that of the Sons 
of Liberty, had a thorough military organi¬ 
zation, and their chief northern leader, C. 
L. Valandingham, formerly a militia gen¬ 
eral of Ohio, conducted his operations from 
Canada West until upon his venturing with¬ 


in Federal jurisdiction, he was arrested and 
sent south beyond the Confederate lines. 
Four military executions, the only ones 
north of the Ohio, became necessary, in¬ 
cluding that of one deserter who was found 
with a safe conduct from Gen. Kirby Smith 
in his possession. 

Arms and ammunition were smuggled into 
the State, and secretly distributed in great 
quantities, and in one instance boxes of 
revolvers with ammunition were sent to 
the headquarters of the disloyal Order 
under the guise of Sunday-School books. A 
battery of howitzers was furnished by Gen. 
Rosecrans, from St. Louis, to augment the 
force to guard the United States and State 
arsenals from capture, and to prevent the 
organized plans for releasing the Confed¬ 
erate prisoners from taking effect. On one 
occasion a regiment of veterans on the way 
to the field was detained to reinforce Col. 
Oakes in Illinois, where a collision took 
place with casualties amounting to thirty 
before suppression of the disturbance. 

A plot to assassinate Gov. Morton was 
uncovered and leading state ofiicials turned 
State’s evidence and swore to the fact. Four 
major generals of the order were convicted 
and sentenced by a military commission to 
be hung. The sentence was commuted to 
that of imprisonment, and eventually the 
United States court rightly decided that 
Gen. Hovey had no authority to try them 
by a military commision while the Federal 
courts were open, as they were in Indiana 
during the entire period. Gen. Hovey’s 
predecessor in command had successfully 
appealed to the Federal Judiciary and re¬ 
fused to try any citizen by a military court. 
The whole history of the order was finally 
exposed, and Chief Justice Bullit of Ken¬ 
tucky, the commander in chief in that State, 
was arrested and imprisoned, and after¬ 
wards impeached and removed from the 
bench. Gold coin and drafts procured in 
Canada for the use of the order were also 
found in his possession at the time of his 
arrest. 

The State itself was obliged to arms its 
militia to the number of 19,000 men in the 
absence of Federal troops; but in 1864, 
when the plot to release the Confederate 
prisoners was ready for execution accord¬ 
ing to plans discovered and afterwards 
verified in court, the Mass. 60th Infantry 
was sent to support the troops then on duty 
at Indianapolis. 

Bounty jumpers, in groups of thirty, 
manacled in pairs, were sent to the front to 


9 





dig ditches for Gen. Sherman, and although 
John Morgan, the great Confederate guerril¬ 
la of Kentucky, made another strong dem¬ 
onstration in his native State and actually 
placed Frankfort, the capital, under siege, 
demanding its unconditional surrender, and 
this at the very time designated by the dis¬ 
loyal leaders of the Sons of Liberty for a 
simultaneous outbreak in Indiana and 
Illinois, that siege was raised, largely by 
Indiana troops. The Sons of Liberty, com¬ 
pletely exposed and over-awed, ceased to be 
a formidable factor of danger to the peace 
of people living north of the Ohio river. 

Up to that time, for nearly two years, the 
families of Union soldiers had been in con¬ 
stant danger from local sympathizers with 
a deliberate plan to establish a North West 
Confederacy in the interest of a permanent 
union with the South and the absolute con¬ 
trol of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys in¬ 
dependent of the authority of the United 
States. To cut loose from New England, 
and also from the monied associations of 
New York, by a combination of south and 
all west of Pennsylvania, was the wild 
scheme of the order. 

The general commanding the department 
was able to advise the authorities at Wash¬ 
ington that the danger of civil war and its 
horrors in the western States had been 
overcome at last, and Gen. Sherman from 
the field telegraphed his thanks for his 
base and line of supply, with reinforce¬ 
ments of troops in time for his advance, as 
a result of the suppression of disloyal man¬ 
ifestations at home, which had imperilled 
the entire border. 

In this protracted sketch of a life-long 
association with the currents of thought 
that gave significance to the struggle to 
preserve the Union, will be found the key 
to my intense interest in the work of the 
Grand Army of the Republic And yet I 
desire to add certain other data before 
noticing existing conditions that seem to 
give to all nations a share in your bounti¬ 
ful harvest and benefit all mankind. 

And first, that you may estimate at its 
true value the contributions to the Grand 
Army from the three States of the Ohio 
river border section, which, during the 
entire war, unlike yourselves in New Eng¬ 
land, were in constant touch with the fight¬ 
ing line, and never safe from invasion, I 
give these significant figures : 

Ohio furnished 198 regiments of infan- 
ry, 13 regiments of cavalry, 2 full regi- 
nents and 26 light batteries of artillery. 


Indiana furnished 156 regiments of in¬ 
fantry, 13 regiments of cavalry and 26 light 
batteries of artillery. 

Illinois furnished 156 regiments of in¬ 
fantry, 17 of cavalry, 2 regiments and 9 
light batteries of artillery. 

The total for the three states made an 
army of 510 regiments of infantry, 43 of 
cavalry, 6 regiments and 33 light batteries 
of artillery, aggregating about 600,000 en¬ 
listed men. 

New England furnished 191 regiments of 
infantry, 14 of cavalry, 6 of artillery and 
33 light batteries. 

Pennsylvania, which lies next to the Ohio 
river border states, was also in close con¬ 
tact with the battle border at the east, 
furnished 215 regiments of infantry, 22 
regiments of cavalry, 2 regiments and 29 
light batteries of artillery. 

New York, the most populous state at the 
north, furnished 191 regiments of infantry, 
26 of cavalry, 16 regiments and 31 light 
batteries of artillery. 

When you take into account that more 
than 100,000 men were practically kept 
under arms at the west, which otherwise 
might have served in the middle zone in 
support of the armies of the center, moving 
southward, you can form some idea of the 
value of the services of your progeny in 
defence of the territory of the original 
North West Tterritory, the integrity of 
which territory as against slavery exten¬ 
sion, primarily initiated the Civil war of 
1861-1865. 

Nor must it be forgotten that Kentucky, 
herself, bleeding from internal wounds, 
furnished for defence of the union 55 regi¬ 
ments of infantry, 17 of cavalry, 2 regi¬ 
ments and 1 battery of artillery, while 
Tennessee, the great battle ground of the 
west, furnished 10 regiments of infantry, 
14 of cavalry and 2 of artillery for the 
national defense. 

Comrades of the Grand Army! You 
glory in the harvest ripening from your 
labors. But you, yourselves, are but seed¬ 
lings from old stock that gained first hold 
upon the soil of this great American center 
of Christian civilization. From 1620 until 
now, Massachusetts has been at the fore¬ 
front of defense of American liberty. Gen. 
Putnam, Ward, Pomeroy, Thomas, Wooster, 
Gridley, Spencer and others who took part 
in the old French and Canadian wars, were 
the companions of Washington in expelling 
the last foreign hostile force from New 
England soil; and New England, mother of 


10 



the North West Territories, has ever been a 
substantial unit for liberty and the right. 

In my boyhood, on every 4th of July, I 
watched with intent interest the surviving 
veterans of the Revolution who tilled car¬ 
riages and received the homage of all ages 
of patriotic men and women and stimulated 
the young folks to new interest in the 
history of the great war for American in¬ 
dependence. And I can never forget my 
indignation when I found that the sword of 
my great grandfather was desecrated by a 
laboring man who used its old blade for 
cutting cornstalks, one autumn season, and 
I still have the manuscript of a sermon 
delivered by another great grandfather to 
his people the Sunday before he started at 
the head of his own parishioners to protect 
our northern boundary and capture Quebec 
in 1759. 

The last of the Revolutionary heroes has 
reached the headquarters of the Supreme 
Commander to dwell on the heights of 
heavenly rest. Your numbers dwindle 
rapidly also. But the survivors of that 
first war gave to the War of 1812 its lead¬ 
ers. The War of 1812 developed others 
who conducted the war with Mexico. Mex¬ 
ican veterans became expert leaders in the 
conduct of the Civil war, in which you 
vindicated the memory of past heroes and 
perpetuated their inheritance of glory. The 
veterans of the Civil war secured to the war 
with Spain its phenomenal success, and to¬ 
day nearly all the generals and colonels of 
the present United States army were private 
soldiers or subaltern officers in that same 
Civil war. 

Yes! The Grand Army of the Republic 
has so firmly riveted the endless chain of 
historic American valor to the chariot of 
advancing universal liberty that all nations 
find thereby their chiefest incentives in the 
pursuit of real and constitutional liberty. 

With such examples of American heroism 
it is not strange that in civil pursuits as 
well, including inventive energy, we take 
the lead in all enlightened progress. Fulton, 
Morse, and Edison have made steam, 
galvanism, and electricity the universal 
vehicles for human thought in compassing 
the mysteries of land, sea and air. The old 
cheese-box Monitor which revolutionized 
naval warfare in 1862, in Hampton Roads, 
has been so magnified in its advisory de¬ 
velopment that the most formidable naval 
armaments ever assembled for conflict are 
about to put to crucial test, on the waters 
of the farthest East Indies, every conceiv¬ 


able instrument of destructive energy that 
American skill conceived and the nations 
adopted from our initiative example. 

The culmination of human invention is 
near at hand. With wireless telegraphy, by 
which the most distant voice may penetrate 
your bed chamber, and invisible creation 
may respond to your call by quick recogni¬ 
tion, the human mind must become more 
conscious of its own divine source, and in 
some degree realize that prayer and praise 
may enter the ear of the Almighty Creative 
Father, without misgiving or doubt, and 
receive in return corresponding spiritual 
strength, guidance, and support in all mat¬ 
ters conformable to His gracious and 
beneficent will. The one great need for 
man is that he conform his own finite will 
to the divine, and thus ensure that domestic 
harmony and peace which everywhere in 
nature has proven to be essential to order 
and happiness throughout the Universe of 
God. 

Life at its longest is short for all individ¬ 
ual experience, and on a day so sacred as 
the present, we must estimate at a higher 
value than ever before, those lives through 
whose mission in the past we realize the 
inestimable mercies of the present. While 
struggle is and ever has been the law of all 
life, we do know that all the centuries of 
the past have made steady progress toward 
a consummation wherein harmony and 
peace must become universal, or the world 
will become one vast open menagerie of 
wild and lawless passions or a mad house 
of raving despair. At this very hour when 
all nations watch with almost frenzied im¬ 
patience for the next tidings from a distant 
theatre of conflict, let us glance at our own 
relations to its pregnant issues and the 
lessons which the nations have been com¬ 
pelled to learn by heart through the struggles 
and victories of the Grand Army of the 
Republic. 

That theatre of war, seemingly so distant, 
is as near us, for knowledge of its events, 
as the church and school-house were to ray 
home when a child. Distance is only 
imaginary now, and thought is boundless in 
reach and grasp. The mighty energy which 
eliminated slavery from our political system 
and then returned more than two millions 
of trained soldiers to peaceful industry has, 
under God, suggested to the nations that 
America alone is a sufficiently impartial 
arbiter to judge of differences that cannot 
be otherwise settled than by the abitrament 
of arms. It is at such an hour in her 


II 



national history that America finds herself 
in possession of a choice vantage ground 
at the distant east for wise observation and 
protection of her own commerce, as well 
as the neutrality of the eastern seas, that 
she becomes the most hopeful adviser in 
the interests of a just and lasting peace. 

It is a most impressive and solemn hour 
for all nations, the world over. More than 
one million of men in Manchuria are in 
positions for almost immediate deadly con¬ 
flict. All over the earth, America not 
wholly excepted, a momentous unrest pre¬ 
vails like the mutterings and rumblings of 
some sullen subterranean fires on the verge 
of outburst, desolation, and ruin. Charity 
and unselfish fraternity here at home are 
the hope of our own beloved country, and 
through her example to the world. The 
once antoganistic blue and gray are restored 
to one national fellowship, and their joint 
muscle, spirit, and loyalty to the restored 
Union both command the respect of the 
world and defy all assaults from external 
foes, whether they be few or many. We 
are able to see now that disloyal acts and 
speeches at the north were chiefly for 
political effect, as the moral question of 
slavery was long made the convenient in¬ 
strument for capturing transient favor for 
selfish ends, just as the maladministration 
of affairs at the south at the close of the 
war retarded the wholesome peace which 
had been anticipated after the surrender at 
Appommattox. 

Comrades of the Grand Army, cherish 


your bond of fellowship! It has been the 
fruit of that prevailing Christianity which 
made our fathers successful and happy. 
Prove to all mankind that you are worthy 
to wear the simple bronze button as more 
suggestive of sacrifice for country and duty 
than if it were the choicest gem that gold 
could not purchase! 

And you, Spanish war veterans, and you, 
Sons of Grand Army veterans, whom I see 
before me, I greet with congratulations 
and thank you for your presence. 

In 1780 Thomas Pownall, once British 
colonial governor of Massachusetts, made 
this prediction: 

“The independence of the United States 
is fixed as fate. Its enterprising spirit will 
not be stopped at Cape Horn or the Cape of 
Good Hope, but will be found trading in 
the South Seas, in the Spice Islands and in 
China. America has become a new primary 
planet which, while it takes its own course, 
must shift the center of gravity.” 

That prediction has been verified. The 
new primary planet now brightens every 
firmanent, and the new center of gravity, 
with the Golden Rule as its announced 
principle of dealing with all mankind, 
already attracts all nations to its glory and 
its destiny. 

We established the Gold Standard as 
pledge of our solid credit, and the world 
acknowledges its full face value. We only 
need now to verify the pledge that is 
stamped upon our coin by proving its truth 
that “In God We Trust.” 


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